While Soul Calibur Legends is the main event in this week's Famitsu, the magazine also has a teaser look at Soul Calibur IV, the Xbox 360 and PS3 sequel that will keep the focus on fighting.

SCIV is being directed by Katsuoshi Sasaki. The magazine lists the lead programmer as Masaki Hoshino. These two shared a few comments about what we can expect from the game.

The main concept of the game, Sasaki revealed, is to perfect the "cool action" for which the series is known. Sasaki and his team hope to push the boundaries in visuals, animation, sound and programming technology.

Hoshino fielded a question about 1080p support for the game. Bandai Namco is currently looking into including support for the high resolution mode. However, Hoshino feels that one area of the visuals must be maintained: sixty frames per second animation.

Legends and IV will take place in different areas of the Soul timeline Legends takes place between Soul Blade and Soul Calibur. SCIV will take place later on the time scale, focusing on the story of a father who uses the Soul Edge to become a hero. He ends up killing his own son who has taken the Soul Edge and put it to use for evil purposes. This is the focus of IV's story.

Compared to Legends, IV will have a larger cast of characters, but this is to be expected given the focus on pure combat. As for who is included in that cast, Bandai Namco has released a CG shot of just one character: Ivy.

Legends will precede IV's 2008 release, so we expect the focus to be on the Wii title for now. However, PS3 and Xbox 360 fans can rejoice! A true next generation entry in one of the best fighting game series is on the way

Man, this game is gonna be sick! Cant wait for it, going to pick it up for my ps3 and looking forward to the online mode

I'm getting a 360 MOSTLY for this game, btw. Even if it's taken a step closer to DoA, it's still Soul Calibur!

I hope they have a slightly bigger focus on the arcade mode this tame, and that the story mode is better. :)

Yeah SC's name in itself still holds some respectability due to the first two games being well made. I'm questioned on my decision more or less to rent or buy used the upcoming SC 4, but I can say it's at lease not Tekken. As much as there are still plenty of Tekken fans, to me Tekken's fighting system hasn't been good since Tekken 2, and every game after two has basically sucked, with the exception of 3's mediocracy. Let's face it, Tekken Tag flat out sucked. The tag system has you hit the floor was nice, but the whole system with one member KO wins was an atomic meltdown. I could feel Namco jamming their middle finger up my ass when I asked why they didn't do it like DOAs, and yes, bash it all you want I don't really care, but the tag system in DOA is probably the best one. BOTH members need to be eliminated to win, cause having you get Bayman knocked out for fun only to destroy people with Zack is plenty satisfying. Point is, the Tekken games have been a yawn since 2, and DOA might be the same thing if they don't get their act together with 5. In DOA 4, unlike the transistion from SC2 to SC3, the key, signature moves from the characters from DOA U2 and DOA 4 were there, but the new moves that were added and the easy access to the old signature ones made the game havily unbalanced. There's an old but sadly accurate saying about DOA 4: "Every person ranked B or higher is gonna use Ryu, Ayane, Christie, or La Mariposa." Although La Mariposa wasn't as frequented by the higher skilled players as the other three mentioned, beating the same four characters got incredibly boring (and I back that "beating" comment with a 78.6% win ratio thank you very much) quickly. It was extremely dull online for DOA 4. It was ashame however, when DOA U2 was released, it's combat system was amazingly well balanced, but having been Techmo's first real game online, the system had the very common regularity of lagging on even 1 MB internet connections (pretty good considering 812kbps and 512kbps are below it in DSL standards). That's why we (this we refers to me and 25-30 other friends) did the DOA you Season mostly in giant all day LANs and get-togethers. We competed professionally amongst ourselves for a year only to run a play-off round and buy prizes for the winners. With the new backwards compatability on the X-Box 360 and another 125 hours of devoted gameplay beating the game 176 different times for the outfits and then survival mode again, the second season coming this December can finally use better net coding capabilities and not lag. Anyway let's get back on topic so we don't piss off any more mods by wandering off the SC discussion. SC 4 needs to return to basically the system from SC 2. All the huge, victory grasping combos from SC 2 were long and difficult, but operable. In SC 3 the combo and moves we came to learn from 1 + 2 had just vanished, and the characters were also somewhat unbalanced. Now SC 2 was slightly unbalanced to being with since Mitsurugi (probably spelled wrong), Talim, Kelik, and Max were used by a lot of people when they were serious about winning. Nightmare was of course a signature character to use, but when trying to win the frequency of his use diminished significantly. Let's also be honest, compared to the new characters from DOA 4, SC 3's new character sucked. The one green chick (name escapes me at the moment for some reason) might stay, but for the most part, they blew. DOA 4's La Mariposa will definately stay and the blonde guy (edit: Elliot is his name) might stay, but I'm gonna say it's safe to check no on the Spartan. SC 5 needs to just either try and forget the new characters from SC 4 or revive their terrible debut in 4. Well I've said what I needed to say but in my opinion:

Dead Or Alive = Virtual Fighter = Mortal Kombat > Street Fighter > King of Fighters > Rival Schools > Primal Rage > Soul Calibur > Clay Fighter > Tekken > Fighter's Destiny > Brand vs. Brand Games > Marvel vs. Capcom 2 > War Gods > Mortal Kombat: The Movie Fighting Game

Oh yea i have played them as well..And i love the 4th not because of Ivy better graphiced view lol..its a new great game

I am looking forward to Soul Caliber 4. It will problably be the game that will force me to buy a PS3 (that and Tekken 6). SC has always been a bit unbalanced since each character that has a decent reach with their weapons will always be a top tier character (and every tournament player will mostly be Kilik). It is still crazy fun to play.

The truth to my simpre I to liked east game all the life have played it to apesar of which you complete put verciones are not what they were before of course I have my esperansas in the fourth part already is hour of which they change the series but to a much adult approach and that finally changes those so boring epilogos by ecenas of videos since they do it with the end of tekken serious something very interesting to see for this new version

Hey Who and How many are the Charachters, jejeje The Only Game of soul Calibur What I Played was Soul Calibur 1, Soul edge he Previous, and the 2 But the 4 are out of my Limits, this will be GREAT I hope So

You don't have an idea what I'd give to play Soul Calibur 4...
I just hope Maxi is still in it :)

Jesus christ me and Spudsy apparently don't agree on anything.
Except Tekken Tag I can say with absolute confidence, dude, if you hated it, it's cause you sucked at it and got your ass handed to you. One char KO leads to a loss for both chars? Deal with it, play smart and actually learn the game. Tekken Tag was definitely the epitome of the series. And most definitely Tag was in no way newbie friendly. It took YEARS of hardcore dedicated frame data learning, reaction training, and distance sharpening to even get mediocre at the game.
The learning curve for Tekken Tag was absurdly high, and at that era, winning tournaments actually meant something to the Tekken community.
Tekken Tag flat out sucked? Clearly you haven't seen legends like Juno Kim and Jang Iksu play the game.

Tekken 4 was a disappointment. It lacked characters, and was rather unbalanced. It had potential to be a good game, but a small roster and balance issues kept it down.

Tekken 5.0 was a step forward from 4, but still balance issues killed the game. Which is why we now have Dark Resurrection, so people can stop bitching about balance and broken moves. EWGF broken? Bullshit, duck and don't whiff. Mishimas broken? Once again bullshit, sidestep left and 75% of their movelist is useless.

SilentKnight

And most definitely Tag was in no way newbie friendly.

This I can agree to, but I did actually take time to learn the game and get good at it only to lose in a few tournies by a sliver of health on one of my opposing characters left and one of mine KOed with the other at half, getting angry and then eventually deciding to pick the decently balanced DOA 2U.

We agree on 4 and 5 though, they were oh so disappointing. Therefore I prefer Tekken 2 and will settle for nothing above 3.

Anyway back on topic now, this is a SC thread. All I gotta say is I hope I don't hear echos of 3 *shiver shiver*.

Well, having watched the trailer and some of the official art my only "complain" will be the female character designs, sure, we all like seeing Sophitia, Taki and Ivy in those less-than-likely battle outfits (y'know, cut-out jump suits, miniskirts, leotards) but boy, they sure went over the freaking board with the "enhancements" of Ivy and Taki, their "features" are just SO huge and the bouncy effect makes them more comical than realistic, but by the gods Ivy may as well go into battle naked, no one would even notice the difference, the designs for other characters were cool and all, I mean Siegfried and Nightmare look flatout ba as well as the other characters.

The designs and effects look better than ever, let's just hope that the gameplay stays the way it was or receives more improvements.

It looks awesome to me. They are improving many things and adding some new stuff as everybody knows. They have only released info and pictures of one new character. They said that they will give more info of the game closer to it's release.
I agree the costumes have been looking sluttier and more sexy in every sequel of the Soul series. Since it's on next gen consoles now that means better graphics and they will also look much better. Creating sexier costumes for every sequel does have it's benefits, it's attracting more publicity and thus becoming more popular, and to top that the game play is awesome as always so nothing bad can come from it. Looks a Ivy she seems to be showing a lot more skin than before and her breasts also look bigger, speaking of breasts so do Taki's breasts, they also seem bigger. Well basically they have increased the size of all female breasts, mostly that is.
I'm not trying to be a pervert because it is true!

I guess im different as none of my favorite characters in DOA 4 were the ones spudsy listed, Im a Kasumi user myself, and im a (legit) SS currently. As for Soul Caliber 4, im really looking forward to it, I wonder if they are going to do console specific Characters like they did for Soul Caliber 2. Maybe the 360 version will have a spartan with an energy sword. The PS3 version could have a weapon based Tekken Character, yoishimitsu aside. If they do that it would be awesome if they did cross platform over online, but i bet it would be next to imposible. Graphics look good from the trailers so gameplay is the only thing im worried about. I hope they try to spice things up with some new things besides moves. I also want them to bring back the character customization from Soul Caliber 4.

This game is better than the previous series not just fighting but is like DMC fighting adventure new story that what am talking about this one rocks that all I can say